


Take a Chance (You Say It's Your Birthday)

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: South Park
Genre: Drunken Confessions, Friendship, Love, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe—" Craig's heart inches up into his throat. He wishes he had words for this, even dumb ones. But he only imagined this part in wordless images. He takes a couple of breaths around his heart. "Maybe undo your fly." Through the viewfinder, Clyde doesn't move. Craig tries not to breathe but he can't help it. "I know you're not gay but, like, just let me, okay? It's my birthday, so." He knows he sounds a little desperate, even this drunk he knows his reasoning isn't solid, and he's profoundly embarrassed—but he can't seem to stop himself from talking any more than he can stop himself breathing. "Will you just let me?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Chance (You Say It's Your Birthday)

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from lyrics to The Beatles' "Birthday."

It's after midnight when Craig gets to Clyde's place. The digital readout on his phone is a little blurry so he's not sure how far after midnight it is, but it was already past midnight when he left the club and it's a least an hour's drive here. And that doesn't even account for the time he's spent just sitting here; he doesn't know how long it's been but it's long enough that the cab driver twists around to ask, "Hey, you want me to take you somewhere else instead?"

Craig shakes his head. This is where he wants to be. Well, not sitting here in the back of a cab, but here at this destination. Destination like destiny. Craig's mouth quirks to the side as his fingers fumble with the door handle, not sure whether the words are dumb or pretty. Either way, he bets they're better left in his head.

"You want me to wait?" the driver asks through the window.

Craig shakes his head again. He doesn't have any money left after the ride here. Anyhow, he knows Clyde will let him in, no matter what time it is, even if he doesn't know what will happen after that.

It takes him a couple of minutes to find the right button for Clyde's apartment. Then it turns out that wasn't the right button, after all, so after apologizing to the woman he mistakenly roused from bed, he tries again. This time the sleepy voice that answers is definitely Clyde's. 

"It's me," Craig says, leaning into the intercom. He wants that to be enough but he's afraid it won't be so, before Clyde asks, he adds, "Craig Tucker."

"Craig!" It might just be his imagination but Craig thinks Clyde suddenly sounds wide awake. "Come on up, man!"

The sound of buzzers usually grates on Craig's nerves but this one is pretty sweet. The elevator is taking too long so he decides to climb the stairs instead, pulling himself along with the handrail. When he gets to Clyde's floor and opens the interior door to the hallway, he can see Clyde's door already open half-way down. 

Clyde is standing on the other side of it when Craig gets there. "Hey, dude! What brings you here?" 

Craig has anticipated this question and feels good that something, at least this one thing, is going according to plan. And there's Clyde's smile too—even though Craig hasn't seen it in person for close to a year, Clyde's smile gives him the same feeling it always has. So he takes an easy breath and starts, "It's my birthday."

"I know, man. I texted you right at midnight." Clyde's grin widens. "Happy birthday."

Craig fingers the phone in his pocket. He wants to take it out right now and look at Clyde's message again, but it's not like the message is going to self-destruct, so he leaves the phone where it is. He takes a deep breath, not as easy this time, and, unable to pick up where he left off, starts again: "It's my birthday, and I want to take some pictures. Of you." He takes another breath. There's more to it, more words he rehearsed the whole way here, but even this drunk Craig realizes they'd be way more dumb than pretty aloud, so he stops there.

He's starting to think even that stopping point may have been too late, when Clyde says, "Sure, okay." He grins again as he steps aside, like it's no big deal. "Come on in." 

Unshouldering his satchel and shrugging out of his coat, Craig watches Clyde slide the deadbolt into place. There's something solid and comforting about a deadbolt and he starts to say so, then thinks better of it; _inside voice, Craig_ , he reminds himself. 

A sound must have come out of him, though, because Clyde has turned to him with a brow quirked. Craig wishes he could take a picture of Clyde's wordless question but his Lomography Lubitel 166 and his Polaroid 300, as well as his phone, are out of reach at the moment. It's probably corny to take a picture with his hands but Craig does it anyhow: frames Clyde with his fingers, pushes the imaginary shutter release button, saving Clyde and his wordless question to memory.

Clyde's brow relaxes. "Can I get you anything? Something to drink, maybe?"

"I'll take a Sunshine Wheat, if you have it," Craig says, mindful of Clyde's penchant for pale ale microbrews.

"How about water?" Clyde says. Since Craig is in no mood to disagree with Clyde's smile, he makes an acquiescent sound.

While Clyde goes to the kitchen, Craig crouches down to retrieve his cameras. Despite all the time he's had to think about this, he's still not sure which one to go with. He thinks once again that he should have thought this through more because neither of the ones he brought is ideal for the kind of pictures he wants to take, but he didn't really let himself think about it seriously until he was already at the club tonight, so he'd just grabbed his favorites when packing the satchel ("on a whim," he'd told himself at the time). 

In the end he decides it's best to have both available and slings them around his neck, then gets his phone from his jacket as backup and shoves it into the front pocket of his jeans as he comes out of the crouch.

As he's straightening, he sees that Clyde is back with the water. Their fingers don't brush as Craig takes it with a "thanks"; he hides his moment of regret by taking a long swallow of water, then turns to set the glass down on the IKEA coffee table he helped put together when Clyde got his first apartment a few years ago.

"Okay then," Clyde says when Craig turns back, "how do you want me?"

This is Clyde and the question is so enormous that Craig almost gets overwhelmed and can't answer for a moment—but this is Clyde, so the question is also easy and exactly what it appears to be. Craig brings the Lubitel up and peers through the viewfinder. He's been using twin lens reflex cameras since he was in middle school and it's second nature to angle it for parallax compensation as he frames Clyde and the question. He holds the shutter release button down. "Just be yourself," he says, still looking through the viewfinder. 

In response Clyde grins and Craig takes another picture. "So…" Clyde says. He cocks his head as he looks at Craig through the lens. "Be myself? Like, what I normally do when I'm alone?" 

For a crazy, dizzifying moment, Craig thinks Clyde is going to offer to jerk off for him. But when he nods, what Clyde says is, "I dance sometimes. Like, just…" He half-grins, half-shrugs. "I put on music and dance around."

"Okay," Craig says, the word ready on his tongue because anything Clyde suggested would be.

"The only thing is, I usually dance in my bedroom. Like, in case my roommate comes back unexpectedly or anything. I mean, he's supposed to be gone the whole weekend, so it's probably okay out here if that's too weird for you—"

"No," Craig says. "That's fine." And when they go down the short hall to Clyde's bedroom and Craig folds himself cross-legged on the bed, it _is_ fine, as natural as when they were kids. 

Over at his desk, Clyde pulls up a playlist on his laptop as Craig undrapes the cameras from his neck and sets them next to him. He doesn't recognize the first song but guesses it's probably J-pop, maybe one of the anime theme songs Clyde has always seemed so crazy about. 

"Hey, will it be bright enough for you to take pictures if I dim the lights?" Clyde asks. When Craig nods, Clyde steps up onto the bed, reaching up to unscrew two of the three bulbs from the ceiling fan light.

Then, still standing on the bed, he starts getting his groove on. Craig has to admit the song is pretty catchy and lets it sway him as he sits. At first Clyde seems to be doing choreography that Craig can only assume comes from the anime, but then it's like his body finds its own rhythms in the music. When Clyde came up with the idea of dancing, Craig kind of thought it was going to be goofy if not outright embarrassing, but it turns out Clyde is actually a good dancer. Good enough that Craig almost certainly would take notice of him at a club. He wonders why he didn't know this about Clyde, wonders if anyone does or if he only ever dances by himself. 

Well, Craig knows now and he'll even have proof of it. He picks up the Lubitel, glad he brought this one after all because, with the reduced shutter lag, it's one of the best analog cameras around for capturing action. He starts shutter-clicking as Clyde hops to the floor, more lightly than Craig would have imagined for his size, and begins to dance in earnest.

As one song bleeds into another, Clyde goes more and more fluid, as if he's melting into the music, or the music is melting into him; he's pouring himself, molten, into the shimmy and swirl of the rhythm. 

Mesmerized, Craig doesn't so much lose track of time as he stops letting it have any meaning.

The shimmy extends upwards when Clyde stretches his arms overhead, clasping his own wrist, and there's a flash of skin as his shirt rides up, exposing the little pudges at his waist, baby fat that Craig has always been secretly pleased Clyde has never managed to get rid of—and then his entire torso is exposed as he pulls his shirt off overhead. Even though the Lubitel doesn't black out during exposure but provides a continuous image, Craig lifts his eyes from the viewfinder and just watches Clyde with pure, raw vision for a few moments.

Then he bends to the camera once more, snapping photo after photo, until he's used up the last frame of his last roll of film. He switches to the Polaroid, which reinvents the entire experience: Clyde is as fluid as ever but now there's a breathless, stuttered heartbeat in Craig's voyeurism as he pulls each photo from the camera, not waiting for the image to fade in before he drops it to the bed and takes the next one.

When the last notes of the last song on the playlist have dissipated, Clyde flops onto the bed again, bare chest rising and falling. "What next?"

"Maybe—" Craig's heart inches up into his throat. He wishes he had words for this, even dumb ones. But he only imagined this part in wordless images. He takes a couple of breaths around his heart. "Maybe undo your fly." Through the viewfinder, Clyde doesn't move. Craig tries not to breathe but he can't help it. "I know you're not gay but, like, just let me, okay? It's my birthday, so." He knows he sounds a little desperate, even this far gone he knows his reasoning isn't solid, and he's profoundly embarrassed—but he can't seem to stop himself from talking any more than he can stop himself breathing. "Will you just let me?" 

After a terrible second, Clyde nods and doesn't just undo his fly but lifts his hips and pulls down his briefs with his jeans—too far, too fast, missing the shot Craig wanted to take. Reaching out, still looking through the viewfinder, Craig sees himself touching Clyde's soft, heavy cock more than he feels it as he arranges Clyde the way he wants him. 

"Is this why you've been avoiding me?"

Craig jerks but doesn't look up from the viewfinder; he nods. 

"You don't have to be drunk," Clyde says, out of frame. "And it doesn't have to be your birthday."

Craig sits back on his heels and looks at Clyde, no lens between them. Clyde is smiling but his face is also serious somehow, and it's making Craig's stomach jump like crazy, and maybe he should run for the bathroom, only he doesn't feel like he's actually going to throw up or anything—

And then it's too late anyhow because Clyde's smile fades as he moistens his lips, and Craig knows what Clyde means to do as he shifts and comes closer, but he still feels a shock when Clyde actually kisses him. "Oh fuck," Craig breathes into the kiss; breathes it again when the kiss breaks.

"You want that?" Clyde murmurs, searching Craig's eyes. "You want me to fuck you?"

Craig swallows hard, nods helplessly.

"C'mere." Clyde is smiling again, stretching out, and Craig goes, crawling across the bed to him. They kiss again, lying together, and Clyde's tongue is as clever a dancer as his body, and Craig feels the shimmy melting into his bloodstream. And then Clyde breaks the kiss to look down as he unbuttons Craig's jeans and takes him out, the touch making Craig inhale sharply, the sight of his cock in Clyde's hand making him sigh. 

He closes his eyes when Clyde aligns their cocks, neither of them fully hard yet but getting there, and starts stroking them together. "I don't really know how to do this," Clyde says. "So you're going to have to help me, okay? Like, guide me and tell me what you want, what feels good…"

Craig twists to bury his moan against the pillow. He doesn't know if Clyde intended any effect with those words, suspects the kid was just speaking from the heart, and that makes it even hotter. "You can just keep doing this, if you want," he says, touching the back of Clyde's hand as it continues stroking their cocks. "Fuck, Clyde. You can do anything you want with me, man."

His voice sounds rough, frayed from the inside out by tremors of need, and Craig thinks that might be even more humiliating than the words themselves. But Clyde flushes even more than Craig and his smile makes Craig forget his humiliation. Craig cants his leg up, wanting to spread his legs for Clyde, wanting Clyde to take whatever he wants, give whatever he wants, just, please, fucking _please_ …

"Hey." Clyde stops stroking, props up on his elbow, touches Craig's shoulder. "Are you okay? You're shaking. Is it too cold in here?"

Craig is just shaking with how badly he wants Clyde but he doesn't think he can say that, so he nods.

"Okay." Clyde sits all the way up now. "How about if you get under the covers while I go get some, like, lotion? Or, what can we use?"

"In my satchel," Craig says, meaning to go retrieve it from the living room but Clyde, already sitting up, is quicker. He slips into his jeans on his way out, leaving the door open.

Craig doesn't bother with the door when he gets up and strips off his clothing. After scrabbling unsuccessfully for the edge of the top sheet, he gives up and settles for slipping under the comforter. He sticks his hands beneath the pillow under his head and gazes up at the ceiling, practicing breathing. He takes a deeper breath when he hears Clyde's footfalls, lets it out slowly as he props himself up in time to watch Clyde close the bedroom door behind him and drop his pants. Seeing Craig looking at him, Clyde waggles the tube of Wet Platinum in his hand. "You carry this around all the time or were you just planning on getting lucky tonight?" 

"I was at a gay bar on my twenty-first birthday," Craig says.

"And instead you came here to take pictures of my cock." Clyde grins.

Craig can't even manage a smile as he says, "And instead I came here to take pictures of you, yeah."

"That's…" Clyde's smile cuts off his words. He kneels on the bed, crawls up to Craig. "You really know how to make a guy feel good about himself," he says, all hot and breathy, right before he kisses Craig again. 

_Fuck_ , Craig thinks as he falls into the kiss. _Fuck no, Clyde,_ you're _the one who knows how to make a guy feel good,_ Craig thinks, eyes fluttering shut, falling in deeper, feeling the kiss catch him and float him up and up and…

When Craig opens his eyes, Clyde is still there but they aren't kissing and he's under the covers now too, sitting up. "Hey," Clyde says and Craig can't quite read his smile. "You passed out for a few minutes."

Craig feels his brow furrow. "No."

A sweetness colors Clyde's smile. "You did, man. But it's okay. We don't have to do this right now."

Craig's distress lodges and coalesces into a cold, uncomfortable lump in his throat. His fingers find Clyde's arm and latch on.

Clyde's hand covers his, fingertips slipping under Craig's palm to lift him off. "Stay here tonight," he says, holding Craig's hand. "Sleep as much as you want. We can spend all day in bed, okay? Hanging out and making out and taking more pictures. And then sometime before midnight, while it's still your birthday, maybe even when you're sober," Clyde's mouth slants up on one side, "we can try again. Okay?"

Clyde's sweet, hot smile gets inside Craig and melts the cold lump, but Craig still can't speak, so he just keeps looking at Clyde. 

It must be enough of an answer for Clyde, who lets go of his hand to lie down so they're face to face. He rests his hand on Craig's waist. "Want me to make out with you until you fall asleep?" 

Craig knows from Clyde's lopsided grin that it's a tease but he's also pretty sure Clyde will do it if Craig asks him to. He doesn't want to fall asleep that way, though; he doesn't want to miss any more of Clyde's kisses. 

He leans in and slips his tongue into Clyde's mouth, lingers for remembrance. Then he shifts himself to face away, nudging back as he feels Clyde's arm coming around him. "Happy birthday," Clyde murmurs.

Craig sighs in response. It's warm and it's perfect and it's not long before he's drifting—no, not drifting: floating again. Floating and anchored. 

This is not the first time he's fallen asleep in Clyde's arms. The first time was years and years ago when they were little kids and Mr. Donovan had taken them on their annual camping expedition at the base of the volcano. Clyde had successfully lobbied to get them their own tent that year. While his dad settled in across the campfire, Clyde proudly unfurled the brand-new, official merchandise Broncos sleeping bag he'd gotten a few days before with the allowance he'd been saving for months.

The Red Racer sleeping bag Craig unrolled was old, worn out, used even before his mom took him to the Salvation Army to get it. Clyde glanced over and Craig knew he'd seen the tears patched with duct tape, the holes not significant enough to tape but still obvious. Clyde didn't say anything, though.

He didn't say anything until they were tucked into their sleeping bags. All he said then was, "G'night." 

"Night."

It was even darker in here than it was outside, with the tent shutting out the stars, so Craig didn't think Clyde could see him shivering. But some time later, Clyde whispered, "Craig—hey, Craig?" When Craig made an inarticulate sound that revealed he was still awake, Clyde said, "Do you want to zip our sleeping bags together?" Craig didn't answer that time, not even with a non-committal sound. "Because," Clyde continued in a whisper, "my sister does that with her friends when they have sleepovers and I always thought it looked so fun, making a huge, big, giant sleeping bag…"

After a moment, Craig said, "Okay." He knew why Clyde had really suggested it, of course. But he was too cold for anything as dumb as pride to get in the way. And as they maneuvered around, trying to zip the sleeping bags together without knocking down the tent, Craig had to admit that it _was_ pretty fun. 

When they crawled into the Red Broncos Racer sleeping bag, as Clyde dubbed it, Craig curled into a ball to try to hold in the shiver from the chill he could still feel.

Then there had been nothing but heat as Clyde wrapped around him from behind. He didn't say anything and neither did Craig. All the shivers left Craig's body and, as he sank down into slumber, the last thing he remembered thinking was that he wished Clyde could sleep with him like this every night.

Clyde is just as warm now as he ever was. As he settles deeper into the warmth, Craig doesn't know if this is the start of anything or just a one time thing—but he knows that, no matter what, he'll always have Clyde, his smile, his warmth; yeah, he'll always have Clyde, and Clyde will always have him.


End file.
